Aussie Cops and Their Dangerous Toys
A shortened version of this article appeared at TCW Defending Freedom (aka The Conservative Woman).
Sinister stories have emerged from the trucker convoy camp in Canberra. Brand new nasty toys seem now to be deployed against peaceful citizens. But this is Australia in the 2020s. What else in new?
Perhaps politicians in the Australian Capital Territory are trying to match macho with Danny’s Boys in Melbourne. Remember the Bear Cat vehicles, the rubber bullets, the pepper spray? Or the Gunner’s thugs in the outback? (Michael Gunner is the brutal Chief Minister of the Northern Territory). Perhaps they are inspired by Justin Trudeau going “full Castro”, as Mark Steyn put it. The Canadian truckers dispersed, after all, when the local Canadian branch of the bankers’ global cartel started stealing their money and they decided they didn’t want to be “punching bags” for the Ottawa police.
The stories emerging in Australia are distressing. As is always the case, it is the underground media that are providing the only real details to come out. The Australian corporate media are far more interested in what Putin might or might not be doing to the people of Eastern Ukraine – whatever the wrongs of that – than what is occurring under the very noses of our national politicians. Bob Moran’s cartoon depicting Black-face Trudeau, Supping Boris and Dead-President-Walking Biden pointing the finger “Russian Bad Man” makes the point neatly. The Ukraine is very useful indeed for the West’s own elected thugs and their military police forces.
What is happening in Canberra? Why the use of designer torture toys by the police? Well, one hundred thousand and more protesters from all over Australia have presumably caused some serious political buttock-clenching across the political class. John Stapleton at A Sense of Place magazine called it “the day Australia changed”. Well, here we have the resistance to the resistance. Ottawa style.
Two specific stories have emerged, one relating to sonic devices and the other to Active Denial System (ADS) heat rays. Jacindarella played Barry Manilow to disperse the crowds in Wellington.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-60362529
Yes, brutal dispersal tactics indeed. The ACT cops, too, used sonic devices even more worrying than Barry. Things called LRADs – long-range acoustic devices.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation and its fact-checker mates at RMIT University tried to put a benign spin on the use of sonic devices:
'Sonic weapons' were used by police in Canberra's protests, but only to broadcast messages rather than do harm.
The Conversation (inevitably) weighed in:
While some protesters claimed they were injured by the “sonic weapon”, those reports are inconsistent with what an LRAD can really do.
All ok, then.
There is a concerted effort to portray protesters as liars as well as everything else of which they are regularly accused. As I say, this is the Covid State’s resistance to the resistance. Counter-revolution. There is also the question, who do you believe? The use of harmful police toys is utterly consistent with the tactics used across Australia and in other Dominions to quell peaceful protests. Lies, spin, propaganda, misinformation, call it what you will.
British readers have probably never heard of the ACT’s Chief Minister. I know I hadn’t. He is called Andrew Barr. Openly gay, of course, and married. Favours euthanasia. Net zero guy, spending $63 million over four years on climate action. Supported Glasgow initiatives to phase out coal globally. He has a number of day jobs:
Chief Minister, Treasurer, Minister for Economic Development, Minister for Urban Renewal, Minister for Tourism and Events.
His police are certainly putting on an event. Andrew doesn’t like the protesters much:
On Wednesday morning, Andrew Barr told ABC's Radio National the protesters' behaviour had been "over the top" and they were "effectively stalking Canberrans, harassing business owners and residents, and aggressively flouting the law".
Mr Barr said the protesters "couldn't have a less receptive audience anywhere in the world" with Canberra - if not the most vaccinated city on the planet - among the most vaccinated cities.
He said that while there is respect for the right to protest, "what we've been seeing in the last week, has gone beyond peaceful or forceful protest".
"It's really a case of the protesters taking their anger and displeasure out on Canberrans and that's not fair," he said.
"It is an eccentric and eclectic bunch, there's no denying that. And it appears to have been infiltrated, or at least part of the protest movement has, by very extremist views."
Canberra is the insiders’ insider paradise. Woke on steroids does not begin to describe the place. A workers’ promised land. Labor has won six elections on the trot. With fewer than half a million people, it is run by a glorified local council. As Andrew implies, vaccinated to within an inch of its life. As I have noted elsewhere:
Australia’s two separate worlds were vividly on display on Saturday, 12 February. In Canberra, tens of thousands of protesters marched upon the national Parliament in the biggest display of controlled public anger at government since Vietnam. The numbers and the raw emotion involved make the pro-Gough rallies of 1975 look puny in comparison. People from all over the country rose up and marched on the capital. Across town, meanwhile, youngsters as young as five were being dressed up as superheroes as they were led off to be vaccinated against a minor illness that will not even touch most of them.
https://spectator.com.au/2022/02/two-australias/
Also, though, Canberra is the home of the national Parliament, and at least a few of its denizens are stirring. Craig Kelly MP has called for an inquiry into the claims about sonic weapons. Senator Malcolm Roberts of One Nation has asked questions in parliament. As has Liberal Party hero Alex Antic, himself detained by police at Adelaide Airport and placed forcibly in quarantine last year for being unvaccinated and entering his own state.
A more trusted news source, (the Canadian) Rebel News reported both the sonic devices whose use in Canberra was admitted by police, but framed to appear innocent, and the deployment of other toys that caused a range of documented injuries and reactions.
What started out at the beginning of the week as the ‘stuff of conspiracy theories’ was eventually confirmed by Police.
Australian Capital Territory Policing admitted that they did use a Long Range Acoustic Device (also known as a LRAD) during the Canberra Convoy Freedom rallies outside Parliament House.
A number of wild theories and have emerged online about how the LRAD device was used in Canberra and claims of injury, but the actual effects are well documented.
Reports are still coming in on various injuries at the protest – most relating to what looks like sunburn and heat stroke. There are also clear allergic reactions from what some speculate might be contact with chemicals.
https://www.rebelnews.com/police_confirm_use_of_controversial_lrad_device_at_canberra_protest
Police maintain that the device was there but used innocently.
Its use has, however, alarmed many public observers as the LRAD is technically a sonic crowd control weapon that, if used in its other setting, projects extremely loud sounds over long distances to cripple a crowd. The ‘alert setting’ on the device is particularly dangerous and has been known to cause permanent hearing damage, dizziness, disorientation, and brain damage.
Did anyone mention “proportional use of force”? Even if the use in Canberra was innocent, it is enough that our cops have these toys to cause alarm. And that it could easily have been deployed in the ways suggested. The important point noted by Rebel News is that:
While there is no evidence that LRADs were used in their alert capacity in Canberra, there is a genuine question about whether or not police would have done so if the crowd was not as well behaved as they were.
Indeed. These are all facts – the weapons exist; they are use for military purposes; Australian police forces possess them; they were present at the protests in Canberra; several protesters have suffered injuries that are unexplained; serious politicians are wanting to investigate this; the use of other barbaric means to harm innocent protesters in Australia over the past two years is clear and documented.
Craig Kelly, for one, is deadly serious:
The Royal Commission into Police Misconduct & Criminality I will establish as a matter of urgency will have very broad terms of reference. A key aspect will be the abuse of ‘sound weapons’ that Australian Police forces have acquired JUST WRONG CRIMINAL
Note that it is the independent news that is simply and temperately reporting facts and suggesting possibilities. The Covid press has a narrative that is determined, relentless and driven by Covid ideology.
Ironically, as Rebel News points out, when the weapons arrived down under, the ABC was “concerned”:
They can break up protests with loud, piercing sound, but Long-Range Acoustic Devices can also cause permanent hearing damage. Australian law enforcement agencies are now investing in the technology, but sound and law experts say their potential use is extremely concerning.’
The ABC even found an expert at that time worried about the (pre-Covid) military state. As well he might be.
At the time, Melbourne University expert James Parker told the ABC, “The secrecy of the state around the tools, the weapons that it has and is capable of using on its population is something to be really, really concerned about. It expands the nature of police/state/military authority in a certain kind of way. It makes sound itself part of the arsenal that police and military and state institutions use.”
But since then the ABC has discovered deplorables and anti-vaxxers. The same folks routinely referred to by politicians, police commanders and journalists as “domestic terrorists”. It is all of a piece with fact checkers out to discredit them, their stories and their motives.
https://politicom.com.au/political-police-may-never-be-reigned-in/
What about the ADS heat rays? There were reports of unexplained injuries at the convoy camp. Was something “cooking the protesters”? The stories on social and alternate indie media were legion. Photos showed hideously puffed, blistered faces. Here the story is more clouded, with serious claims from those affected, and many allegations based on readings of devices that measure heat waves.
https://www.bitchute.com/video/Y78uz4OJtaYg/
Your News’ Jamie White reported:
Australian police have been deploying directed energy weapons (DEWs) against the peaceful Freedom Convoy protesters around the capital, according to reports.
Disturbing videos and photos circulating social media show Canberra protesters, including women and children, who appear to have been badly burned by directed microwave energy weapons, with blisters on their faces, arms, and torsos.
These particular DEWs reportedly used concentrated microwave radiation to inflict painful burns on the skin from far distances.
As one online commenter noted, “this isn’t sunburn”.
Whatever the murky tactics and toys used by police, the message to we-the-people from the Canberra community was clear. One local rammed a protester’s vehicle with her car, then let loose with the expletive laden vitriol.
The Canberra Times editorial made its position clear, after a mere few days of extremely polite, heartfelt protest by the deplorables. “You have made your point. Now go home”. If ever a headline summed up the culture of taxpayer-funded Canberra, this was it. The same Canberra Times accused Craig Kelly of “bringing a conspiracy [theory] into the House of Representatives”.
Even “conservative” columnists from The Australian resident in the Capital had a go.
Angela Shanahan’s sneering tone, dripping with sarcasm, sets the mood:
I am a resident of Canberra. I am not living in some bubble of popular imagination; I am living in a suburb, not far from the centre, and driving in Canberra is usually a dream. We don’t have a peak hour; more like a peak minute or two. But this week, no matter which devious route one took, the giant Hilux driving, upside-down-flag-waving warriors of freedom were everywhere, blithely ignoring the admittedly ridiculously low Canberra speed limits.
Canberra’s suburban quiet was shattered by the great horn blasts of giant lorries, and the footpaths were crowded too. Plenty of people were just walking with flags, babies, in costumes and with props, filing up to Parliament House. The mix was eclectic: some young anarchic types, truckies, bikies, mothers with kids, but also a lot of middle-aged people in hats. On the lawns outside Parliament House the crowd resembled a cross between a Saturday morning at Bunnings and a chapter meeting of the Bandidos.
The general view was that the “freedom convoy”, numbering at least 20,000 (though this is disputed), was against vaccination mandates. At least this was the proverbial straw for many people.
Vaccination mandates were only one part of a general sense of disgruntlement. The cry was one of “give us back our freedom”. One might well ask: freedom for what, or from what? From the government, the protesters would reply. Vaccination mandates should go and state borders should be opened were the main grievances. The federal government should simply force state borders open, one person said to me – ignoring or ignorant of the fact it is not in the constitutional powers of the federal government to force states to open borders.
Shanahan has long been a paid-up member of the vaccinator class, having a natural home with the Murdoch press, aka The Daily Vaccinator. Disgruntlement? Grievances? “Chafing”? “Demanding”? “Vague and unspecified feelings of abandonment”? “Convoluted mindset”. “Minority obsessions”. Angela seems not to have noticed, dare one say from her eyrie in Canberra, that Australia has fallen apart. That people’s lives have been ruined. The parking of the unvaccinated in the bad corner and the use of language to diminish their “grievances” is a classic tactic of the Covid class. According to the Police boss, the crowd had a “poor attitude”. Thought crime. Only three arrests, though.
But, as we know, names will never hurt us. It is the sticks and stones of the political police that are doing the harm. Like the truckers in Ottawa, we too have been used as punching bags. The “journalists” like Shanahan are useful idiots, with the Kool-Aid dribbling down their chins.
Paul Collits
25 February 2022